Guinevere

Guinevere was the wife of King Arthur Pendragon and later the Queen of Promiseland in her own right. Though her reign was decidedly more peaceful than that of her husband, she was a deeply unpopular figure. The instability of Arthur’s reign was blamed by many on Guinevere’s inability to bear the king a child and secure the line of succession. Then, when she finally did give birth, in the weeks just before Arthur’s death, rumors persisted that young Leon was the product of an affair between Guinevere and Lancelot du Lac and not of the royal marriage.

The third child and only daughter of the Grand Duke of the Garden, Guinevere was a much beloved figure in her homeland. Pursued by many powerful Edenian leaders, she eventually chose Arthur because of the king’s maturity—he was 10 years her senior—because of the vast library he kept in Camelot, and because he agreed to keep their marriage an open relationship. The only things he asked of her were to bear him at least one child, and to bear children for no other man.

She was happy to oblige, and would’ve kept on obliging until the king’s dying day. But when Arthur, after years of childlessness, agreed to submit himself to tests conducted by dwarven doctors from The Reek and thereby discovered he was infertile, the king asked his queen to break the oath she’d sworn so many years before.

It was then that Guinevere sought out one of her most frequent lovers, Sir Lancelot, and got the deed done. Unfortunately, though Guin, Lance, and Arthur had all agreed to keep the arrangement a secret, the people of Promiseland—who had long disapproved of their queen’s promiscuity—decided to spread rumors about the child’s parentage anyway.

And so, for the rest of her life, Guinevere lived as the object of hatred and derision—all for doing what her husband had asked her to do in the first place.